A research about transformational leadership practices for small and medium sized companies in the construction industry of Turkey

Construction sector is one of the main sectors that create the highest impact on the account of the contributions it makes to the economy and employment in a developing country like Turkey. Leadership skills of managers become important to provide effectivity, optimum usage of human and financial resources and adaptation to changes in the company. When SME's are considered, these companies can be accepted as advantageous against the negative effects of possible economic fluctuations due to their flexible organizational structure however, they cannot maintain the advantages they have owing to financial problems and managerial mistakes so cannot sustain their existence for long time. SMEs operating in the construction sector need active leaders to be able to withstand economic changes and provide sustainable growth of the company in this competitive environment. In the literature survey conducted within the scope of this study, it was seen that the number of studies on the leadership behaviors of the managers in the construction sector is not very frequent. Especially when SMEs in the construction sector in Turkey are examining, it has not been encountered in a study about leadership. This situation has been decisive in determining the topic of this thesis. Thesis totally consists of five chapters. The first part presented, introduction, contains information about literature summary, purpose and hypothesis of the thesis. In the second part presented, leadership and leader definitions, the differences between leaders and managers and theories about leadership and management have been mentioned. The third part of the study contains SME definitions in Turkey and EU, the importance of SME's in Turkey and in EU and advantages and disadvantages of SMEs. Additionally, in the context of leadership, management problems of SMEs' and the benefits of transformational leadership for SMEs' explicated in this chapter. Fourth chapter includes information about main approaches, the design of the research, creation of the sample, collection of the data, the survey and the evaluation method. By means of survey, two-part survey was used in this study. In the first part of the survey, demographic characteristics of the participants were questioned. In the second part, Kouzes and Posner's "Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) 3600 Evaluation-Self and Observer" questionnaire, which is an internationally validated inventory that is used to reveal the transformational leadership styles of managers, were applied to participants. Additionally, the reasons of using LPI in this study also explained in this chapter. In the fifth chapter, the interpretation of the data obtained as a result of the questionnaire was given. Also, reliability analysis was performed in the SPSS 22 program for the LPI (self-assessment and observer) questionnaire used in this study. The answers of demographic questions in the first section of two-part survey demonstrated under the descriptive analyses part of this chapter. Therefore, the relations between the answers of leaders and observers were examined in accordance with LPI practices in relational analyses part of this chapter. Finally in the sixth chapter, the obtained results are summarized and various suggestions are demonstrated. Key Words: Leader, Manager, Construction sector, SME, LPI